Skiing in Control - Free thoughts and suggestions from one of Europe's top coaches.

Tag Archives: Skiing practice

Ski coaching to combat nerves is another service in short supply. How often have you been told to “ski in the fall line“?

This is not what your ski instructor meant – but it’s what she SAID!

Highly knowledgeable ski coaches refer to the “fall line”. They do this because they make fine distinctions between the ‘fall line’ and the ‘flow line’. By the ‘flow line’ they refer to the pathway taken by your centre of mass, or by your skis – “central and peripheral flows”.

However, ski instructors don’t teach many knowledgeable ski coaches; they teach recreational skiers. “Fall lines” don’t sound good to recreational skiers, so we need to provide ski coaching to help combat nerves. Read on for more explanation Continue reading →

Sports psychology plays a big part in top level sports nowadays. As anyone will know who has been on my skiing courses, visited the bobski.com blog, or read my book here

It is not an arcane science that is only available to elite performers, we can all use it.

The picture above is of Irish Rugby star Johnny Sexton making the drop-kick during overtime minutes in the Ireland-vs-France match yesterday. The significance for out skiing, you ask ?

The pressure on him was enormous; the time available almost non-existent; his responsibility to the rest of his team who had worked incredibly hard to set-up this half-opportunity equally burdensome.

Using imagery, from sports psychology, to improve your chances.

Interviewed afterwards, Sexton said seconds before he took the kick – a 42 yarder ! – he remembered and evisioned a previous game, years before, with almost the same characterisitics, when he took a similar kick that had succeeded !

He implied that his imagery had helped him succeed with this one. I believe him.

Whatever level of skiing ability you currently possess, you can use imagery and mental control techniques to help you. Like everything to do with skill, whether skiing or not, you need practice at mental techniques. But they are just as available to you as they are to elite performers.

Learn about skiing mental techniques and you will improve your skiing more than you may think.

Imagery works. I cover a lot of it in other blog posts, some of my “white papers” – if you want some just write to me at bobski@bobski.com and of course I explain much more fully the things that you can do, in my book: the link above should take you to it or just Google Ski In Control: How to ski ANY piste, anywhere, in full control.

Skiing technique: mistake #2: Clumsy joint flexing.

Perhaps correct for her exercise but terrible for skiing!

Skiing technique can be practiced at home in your bedroom. I want to return here to my admonition in “Mistakes #1” on posture, find it here. If you have not already read it, I recommend reading that first. Do the simple practices and then come back to this.

This Skiing technique issue of being able to both flex and extend your ankle, knee and hip joints – especially your ankle – is not a peripheral matter. This is absolutely fundamental to your development of skilful skiing. You need to develop skill in this area for your skiing to really give you satisfaction.

Skiing technique : mistake #1: Standing too upright.

Skiing is dynamical in nature. Constantly moving. It is not a series of individual, and separated events but a continual stream of them. More akin to a moving stream than a line of individually separated stones.

The oft-promoted, and oft-accepted idea of being “in balance” is completely wrong. There is never time to be “in” balance; we would have to come to a stop in order to be able to do that. As John Shedden pointed out to me once, if you stand a brick on its end, on a flat level surface, it will be in balance. We cannot ski like that.

Skiing technique requires instead, for our balanc-ing to be of a ‘fuzzy’ nature. So long as we are moving, we will not ever be “in” balance, we will instead be constantly moving towards that: constantly making (often unconscious) movements adjusting to changing circumstances. This is one of the reasons that skiing is difficult. There is much you can do to change this, even while you are at home. Continue reading →

Ski Training and how you can use your bedroom full-length mirror to enhance your skiing.

Do just three a week of my ten-minute sessions with your full length mirror and you’ll transform your skiing next season

Practice does not make perfect. Not automatically anyway: it might do but more than likely won’t. What practice does is to make permanent, no matter what you practice or how you practice it. So it can do more harm than good if you are not careful. As John Shedden observed, “Humans get good at what they do”. So be careful what you do.

Just like everything else in life skiing opens up endless opportunities for self-denigration, and disappointment with oneself. So we need to take positive action to counter that. And it is not that difficult when you know how.

One of the best tools to use is effective goal-setting. Effective goal-setting is not as simple as you may think, but again, it is not especially difficult in principle. Getting it right will enhance your happiness, as well as furthering your progress. Continue reading →

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